


every traveler, please come home

by AndreaLyn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Fix-It, Groundhog Day, M/M, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-08 20:51:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18631024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Michael gets sent back in time to relive the best and worst day of his life. Then he does it over and over until he realizes that he has a chance to fix it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from _Turn and Turn Again_ by All Thieves.
> 
> There will be more pairings and characters added for the second part (which should be up later this week as I finish shaping that up). This departs canon just after 1x11, though some of the events of the episodes after will be touched on. Thank you to [Hazel-Athena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hazel_Athena/pseuds/Hazel_Athena) who helped me solve a huge scene problem in chapter 2, because it would not have been the same fic without her as a sounding board.

“Hey Guerin! My dad says you and Alex miss one more dinner and he’s going to put your picture on the banned wall,” says Rosa Ortecho, when Michael shows up at the Crashdown on what is conceivably the weirdest day of his life. 

Alex is behind him, squeezing his hand, and Michael stands on the precipice of a completely foreign land, still trying to navigate the waters, but knowing at least he’s not alone.

“Isobel’s here,” Rosa says next, before turning back to the three-year-old she’s been playing with so she can get right on back to her puppet show, “and everyone else!” 

Michael’s officially calling it.

This is the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to him.

* * *

You see, because it’s not supposed to be like this. 

Or, at least, it hadn’t been originally, but that’s getting fuzzier for Michael because there are multiple realities clashing in his head, trying to find a place to root and live so they can co-exist. What happens is something that Michael would have deemed impossible, but he’s quickly learning that when you’re dealing with aliens and their technology, never rule anything out.

Because, thirty-four days ago, Michael had woken up in the past on the best and the worst day of his life after finishing a late night with some of the alien tech in the bunker. He’s been feeling that desperate itch to get off the planet, more so ever since they discovered that Noah’s the murderous fourth alien, which has given him extra incentive to escape his complicated life. 

Instead of managing to escape the atmosphere, he escapes the present.

He wakes up and he’s seventeen again, waking up in the morning light of Alex Manes’ toolshed, a guitar learning up against the futon, his schoolbooks falling out of his backpack, and all the clothes he owns shoved in a duffel bag under the blanket. He sits up in a frantic hurry and while he knows he should check the date, he doesn’t have to.

Eyes shut, blind deaf and dumb, he’d know what day it is. 

It’s the one he’s dreamt of, the one he relives in his head on an almost nightly basis, and apparently now he’s reliving it. _Fuck_ , he’s not ready for this. Maybe this is because he’d been in the museum recently, maybe it’s because he’s been thinking about Alex so much, but to have to come back here to the best and the worst day of his life feels like one big screwed up version of the Christmas Carol, as far as he’s concerned.

His phone pings with a text from Max, just like it had all those years ago. Michael rolls over to glance at the invitation to the diner to talk. Prom’s fresh in Max’s mind, but it’s ancient history to Michael, but if he’s here to relive this horrifying day, then better get it over with.

He gets up.

He goes through the paces.

He kisses Alex for the first time and it still feels as cosmic as ever. He sleeps with him and he falls in love, and then Jesse Manes brings the hammer down on his hand and his world explodes in a pain he’d forgotten how to feel, compounded when he slinks out of the toolshed to the truck, knowing what’s coming next.

“Isobel,” he sobs out when he feels her pain through the connection. 

He drives out to the desert to go through the terrible motions of a past they’ve already created. When the fire they set is burning in his view, he wonders why the hell the tech he’s been working with would throw him back into this awful memory to relive, because it has no possible helpful function and Michael can’t see the _point_ of reliving this ecstasy and agony. 

That night, in the back of his truck, he shivers because it’s been a cold June and the grief from the day is making his body tremble. He’s cold, he’s alone, and he’s in pain. 

Just as he had the first time he’d lived through this, he falls asleep staring at his aching hand and thinks to himself how it would have been nicer, at least, to get one more chance to have happiness with Alex beyond the better parts of today..

How little he’d known that he was about to get just that.

* * *

Michael wakes up.

It’s the same day, the day when he’ll kiss Alex, the day when Isobel (Noah, really) will kill Rosa. He wakes up and he goes through the motions, doesn’t change a single thing, not because he can’t, but because he’s not sure he wants to. 

The day ends the way it had the first time. 

Michael’s too much in shock and grief and pain to realize that he hadn’t tried to change anything just so he could live through the best day of his life. So what if it’d meant having the worst day happen right after it? Maybe it’s worth seeing that flickering fire in his eyes again and feeling the throbbing pain in his hand to have remembered how cosmically perfect that first time with Alex had been.

It’s a beautiful and a cruel dream to be having. Michael curls into his truck that night to try and sleep with the awareness that no matter how badly the pain of the night hurts, he’s willing to put up with it to get the exuberant joy of the day.

* * *

Michael wakes up. 

It’s the fourth time and by now, he’s figured some of this out. This isn’t a dream. This isn’t him being shown his past so he can analyze and interpret. This is _real_. He’s back in time and he’s been given the chance to _fix_ things.

It’s still the best day of his life and he wonders if he can somehow relive it right up to that one moment and prevent it from taking an awful turn. Today, he decides he’s going to try. 

“We should go back to my place,” Alex murmurs, tangling his fingers up in Michael’s shirt as they sway back and forth, exchanging kisses that were nervous when Michael had been seventeen, but he’s twenty-seven mentally and he’s good at this now. There’s confidence in each kiss, though the desperation he floods them with probably keeps them from being masterful.

Michael shakes his head and refuses to let Alex walk away. “No,” he says. “No one’s here. Let’s just stay.”

Alex’s laugh is the brightest thing, singing with nerves and disbelief. It doesn’t take long for Michael to realize – he thinks that’s a joke.

Michael presses a hand to Alex’s back, preventing him from drifting away. “I mean it. Let’s stay here,” he says, and pushes forward to kiss him again, yanking Alex’s vest off of him frantically, even as Alex babbles nonsense into Michael’s mouth, and when Alex keeps trying to say something, Michael eases back to hear it.

He cups Alex’s face, thumbs stroking his cheeks as he stares at this perfect, unbroken, beautiful boy in front of him. The scar on his forehead hasn’t etched itself on his face yet, he stands steady on both feet, and Jesse Manes hasn’t broken down his spirit with the help of the wars ahead of them. 

“Have you ever done this before?” Alex asks.

What’s he supposed to say to that?

“Not like this,” is what he decides to say, and lets Alex interpret that the way he did the first time (“with a, with a guy?” “yeah”) before he focuses on getting them to the ground where they can sleep with each other for the first time, as connected and cosmic as it had been in the toolshed. It’s a testament to how dead the museum is that no one even shows up for the hours between their first kiss and redressing after their first (and second and third and fourth) time.

He can’t help it, but Michael keeps glancing to the door, fretful that even though he’s changed the venue, Jesse Manes will still come crashing in that door with hammer in hand.

He doesn’t, though.

Their first time is sweet and skilled and the false stars shine above them as Alex takes Michael apart with his mouth and Michael responds in kind, and even though it’s rougher than he’d like it to be when he fucks Alex, each kiss is sweeter than the last. Today won’t end with a broken hand, with his blood on Alex’s face, with them both in tears.

It may end poorly for other people, but not him. Not today.

They fall asleep together on the floor of the UFO Emporium and as he drifts off, in Alex’s arms, Michael ignores the frantic psychic calls inside of his mind. With Michael’s head tucked under Alex’s chin, he breathes easily for the first time in a decade, and he stares at his healed hand, feels Alex’s warmth behind him, and he knows that it’s possible for them to have a happy beginning.

It only takes ignoring his family to do it.

The guilt starts to seep in even as he falls asleep, and he already knows that if he wakes up in the future and everything is back to normal, he’ll be happy for having had this chance with Alex, even if he had to ignore his responsibilities and his siblings to get it.

Fuck, he’s a selfish ass.

* * *

Michael wakes up.

He’s not back in the future. It’s like the universe knows that he’s managed to get what he wants, but also at what price and has decided to keep him around for more of the same loop. Chastened, like he needs to behave, Michael doesn’t try and change things this time around, at least, not in any major way. 

He has the best day of his life, but this time before Jesse can come pounding in the door, Michael doesn’t make stupid noises or talk about how good it was. He needs Alex to hear something before everything turns bad. “Listen, I know it might seem like a lot for you to hear so early, but I need you to know. I love you, Alex Manes, I have, and I always will. Nothing can change that.” Even when it hurts, even when they’re apart, he needs Alex to know that. 

Jesse kicks the door open before Alex can reply, but it’s fine. At least Michael got to say it once.

* * *

Michael wakes up. 

It’s the tenth time he has. He wakes up to sheets that still smell a little of Alex (because he’d given them to Michael) and staring at the posters that Alex had plastered up in the shed. He’d tried to take over his father’s space and infuse his own personality into it, and it’s the space he’s given to Michael to use. 

He goes to the diner and he gives Max his advice.

He goes to the UFO Emporium and he kisses Alex.

He lets Alex bring him back to the toolshed. 

“Have you ever done this before?” Alex asks in the fading light as he stares at Michael the way he has nine days in a row, but still as beautiful and wondrous as he always is. 

“I’m starting to lose count,” Michael confesses, but he still lets Alex pull him in, kissing him until he forgets what’s going to happen next. 

Alex’s laugh is a bright, beautiful thing as he accuses Michael of being, “weird,” against his lips, clearly not caring. Michael kisses him back, but holds him by the shoulders to prevent them from stripping off more of their clothes, one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do. “Hey,” he says, “run away with me.”

“What?” Alex laughs, but there’s a note in his voice, a panic that Michael suspects is there because he’s thought about it before, but has never expected anyone else to bring it up. 

Michael doesn’t know what they’ll do, or if this will even work, but it’s better than staying here and waiting for the hammer to fall (literally). “We’ll pack up my truck, take all the cash we can get, and run away, together.” He knows Max and Isobel probably need him; he knows that he’d be taking away Alex’s purpose with the military. 

He _doesn’t care_.

“Guerin, I…”

Michael can feel the panic grabbing his heart like a vise. 

“If he finds out, he won’t ever let me come back,” Alex says, barely loud enough for Michael to hear, but he understands every word of it. How many homes had Michael been kicked out of because he’d done something wrong? How many families did he lose because he misbehaved or _existed_ in the wrong way one too many times?

“So, let’s not let him find out.”

Alex drifts apart enough for him to shake his head. Michael’s taking some things for granted, including the part where Alex is still under Jesse’s thumb enough that he’s not willing to break away from him, or maybe he’s just too scared of leaving without a plan.

“Just, kiss me again?”

Michael wishes he could be stronger and walk away from this, but he fears every day that he’ll wake up in the future where things are so complicated and Alex has seen all his secrets and walked away. He needs to take advantage of this while he can.

He kisses Alex, strips him of his clothes, and they fuck on the futon.

The day ends in blood and fire and grief, the way it usually does, but Michael’s been expecting it. He almost welcomes it, because it’s become one of the few constants left. Maybe he’s not back here to fix this. Maybe this is his punishment for being a part of this. Maybe he’s here so he can be happy and have it all taken away repeatedly, the way that they had taken it away from Rosa, from Liz.

It ends in blood and fire and pain.

Michael falls asleep in his truck and wishes he could run right off the planet.

* * *

Michael wakes up.

“Fuck this,” he growls and uses his telekinesis to send the shitty alarm clock in the shed crashing against the wall. He buries his face underneath the blankets. He doesn’t go to the diner. He doesn’t kiss Alex. He doesn’t help his siblings cover up three murdered girls. He lies there, under the covers, and ignores his phone and the creeping footsteps outside the door, which he suspects to be Jesse Manes, lurking.

Michael debates flinging the door open and telling him where he is, come and get him.

He’s tired of failing at the same problem over and over again, he might as well try a new approach. He pulls the blankets over his head a little more and he waits for another day, even if he already knows he’s going to get the _same_ day.

* * *

Michael wakes up.

He’s angry. It burns beneath his skin because no matter what he does, he keeps being put back here. He’s tired of being a victim and he’s tired of letting other people control his life. When Jesse Manes grabs Alex and pins him against the wall, Michael’s anger explodes like a concussive force and it makes every piece of glass in the toolshed shatter. The understanding dawns in Jesse’s eyes, but Michael’s too angry to care.

“I said don’t touch him,” Michael snaps. 

Jesse sets down the hammer with precise and calm care before he opens a drawer, pulling out a gun that’s been there the whole time, a place where Michael had never bothered to look (because he’d always been scared of displacing something and Jesse figuring out he’s been staying there).

“Dad, no!” Alex begs, pleads, but there’s no stopping a maniac.

“He’s one of them, Alex. He’s one of them and I’m going to fix it. He’s a threat to humanity, all aliens are! I’m going to stop him from hurting you.”

Michael lets out a ragged sob and it figures that in protecting Alex, he had to give his own future away. Maybe it’s right to let it end here, maybe this is how it’s supposed to go. “Don’t listen to him,” he says, strangely calm for a man who has a gun pointed at his head. He closes his eyes, like he’s ready to accept it, but then Alex’s voice cuts in.

“You have to shoot me first.”

Michael opens his eyes to see that Alex has stepped in front of him. 

“Alex, no,” he pleads, but for all that Michael would hope that his son’s bravery would put a pause in Jesse’s step, the man quickly shows how little a heart he has. 

Jesse doesn’t shoot his son, so at least he’s not that completely devoid of moral boundaries, but it’s not like what he does is any better. He strides forward and coldcocks Alex with the gun, staring at Michael once Alex is out of the way, unconscious on the floor. “I always knew,” is what he says, before he shoots Michael in the kneecap, sending him collapsing to the ground with a wild shout of agony.

He's writhing on the ground in pain, Jesse looming over him, and he thinks this is it. It’s over. 

“You won’t corrupt my son any longer,” is the last thing he hears before he passes out from the pain, his blood pooling on the ground below him. Michael hopes that when Alex comes around, it won’t stain his clothes, won’t be a reminder of his failure to keep Michael from Jesse Manes’ malice.

He wakes up in a cell and he’s sick to his stomach, though his gunshot wound has been patched up. All around him, he can feel grief and pain, and on his door, N-40 numbers him off. Every time he closes his eyes, he feels like there’s someone inside his head, wailing with a grief he can’t even quantify, worse than he’s ever experienced. It’s loss and guilt and regret. It feels like someone who’s lost their heart crying in his head and it’s _deafening_.

“Shut up,” he shouts, grabbing his temples and squeezing his eyes shut tightly. “ _Shut up_!” he screams, and while this level of anger would usually bring a telekinetic burst with it, it’s dead space around him, like he’s never had his powers at all.

He slumps onto the bed in this ridiculous prison complex of Jesse’s, and he thinks, _of course_ , and he wonders how long this has been here. 

One thing’s for sure.

When he gets back to the future, Jesse Manes isn’t getting away with this.

He curls up on a prison bed that night and for the first time since this started happening, he prays for the day to restart, because it’s the first time he understands how badly he needs another chance to set things right, but also understands how much worse it could be.

* * *

Michael wakes up.

He’s alive, it’s morning, and he’s _safe_. Frantically, he shoves the blankets off him and even though it’s six in the morning, he sneaks into the main house, knowing that Jesse Manes and some of Alex’s brothers could catch him, but he doesn’t care. 

“Alex,” he whispers, once he’s unlocked all the doors he needs to and has let himself into Alex’s bedroom, finding him tangled up in the sheets, smudges of kohl still under his eyes like he forgot to take it all off.

Alex shifts in his bed, looking half-awake and more than a little shocked.

“Guerin, what are you doing?” 

Michael says nothing, only climbs into bed with Alex. He slides under the covers, wrapping his body around Alex’s from behind. He can tell the moment Alex gets okay with it, his tension relaxing into something else when he figures out that this isn’t a trick. Michael doesn’t have the heart to explain what’s happening, doesn’t have the energy to talk about how he’d felt watching Alex crumple onto the floor.

Instead, he holds tight and it breaks Michael. 

“I love you,” he sobs against Alex’s neck, feeling like a scared boy for the first time since he started waking up in the past.

Alex doesn’t say it back, but Michael knows that the Alex of his future, the one he’s been trying to fix things for, loves him too. Right now, it doesn’t matter if he loves him or not so long as he keeps rubbing his hand over Michael’s back.

He whispers soothing things to him, holds him tight, and lets Michael fall apart as he thinks about what happened yesterday and how he’d do anything to prevent it from happening again.

Alex feigns illness that day and neither of them go anywhere. They spend it all wrapped around one another in bed and when the sun is going down, Alex asks if Michael wants to talk about it, after a long stretch of fitful napping, off and on. 

“Not really,” he admits, but as he stares at Alex, he thinks he should ask one of the smartest people he knows for their advice. “If you kept making the same decisions, over and over, and it kept bringing you back to the problem, would you give up on it?”

Alex’s brow furrows. “I mean, I’ve got no context, but maybe you’re looking at it the wrong way?”

He's not sure how he could be looking at this wrong. If he’s back here, he’s back here because he needs to somehow prevent the day from turning bad. He wishes he could say that he’s come back here to protect Rosa and the girls, but he’d be lying if he did.

Michael’s in the past for Alex, he’s here to fix _this_. 

“I need to fix this,” Michael says, voice hoarse from crying all day. “I’m so tired of being a failure, of being useless, of…”

Alex kisses him to shut him up. 

“You’re not,” he insists. “Guerin. _Michael_ ,” he exhales, and it doesn’t matter that Alex hasn’t said he loves him, the way he’d just said his name is more powerful than any little set of three words could be. “You’re the smartest guy I’ve ever met. If anyone could figure out a problem, it’s going to be you.”

Michael closes his eyes to bask in the bliss of Alex’s confidence in him, the way he’s said his name, and the way he presses feather-soft kisses to his neck, held secure and tight. It hits him that this is the solution he’s chasing.

He doesn’t want this to be the only day they have this.

Michael Guerin wants this for the rest of his life and maybe he needs to look at this day differently. He needs to turn it upside down and look at it the right way.

“Alex, you’re a genius,” he says, when he figures out that he’s been looking at this backwards. He's been going back to front, top to bottom, start to finish. 

He swears he won’t sleep that night, brain buzzing with these new epiphanies, but Alex’s warmth behind him, the steady rise of his chest as he breathes, and the hope that’s flooding back into his heart is enough to lull him to sleep, but he knows that tomorrow isn’t going to be the same.

Michael’s going to fix this.

* * *

Michael wakes up and he finally gets it. He understands. He knows that it’s not about him and Alex when it comes to fixing the day.

It is, but it’s not.

If he wants to get to him and Alex, then he has to fix the other things. It’s a circuitous solution, but the more he thinks about it, the more he realizes that if he _delays_ what happens today with him and Alex, just a little, then he might be securing it in stone. There are other things he needs to worry about and Michael has all the solutions to his own problems. He knows exactly where Noah is at this point, he knows where Isobel is, can place Max and Liz and he’s starting to form a plan. They need to prevent Noah from using Isobel’s blackout to start the chain of murderous events and they need Rosa to stay in a safe place. They need to deal with Noah before he becomes a bigger problem. 

It means that after he kisses Alex in the UFO Emporium, when Alex slides back and asks if they should head back to the toolshed for some privacy, Michael knows what he has to do, even if it means that he’s taking the best part of this day and putting it off. He tangles their fingers together and gives him a lazy smile.

“I was actually kind of hungry,” he admits.

“Really?” Alex asks dubiously. “I can taste fry grease on your lips.”

“Growing teenage boy,” he quips. “Besides, are you really gonna rob me of my chance to share a Crashdown milkshake with you?”

Alex looks like he wants to argue, so Michael uses his best bargaining chip. He leans in and slides both hands through Alex’s hair, holding him as he leans in to kiss him with all the skill and all the desperation and all the talent of his twenty-seven-year-old self. 

It’s enough to make Alex swoon a little, falling forward into Michael’s arms.

“Please,” he whispers, lips grazing Alex’s earlobe.

“I guess I could,” Alex begins, voice high and taut, “enjoy a milkshake with you?”

It’s torture to leave the museum and walk to the diner, and Michael has to think about Max and Isobel a lot to kill his arousal, but he knows that he’s doing the right thing. He grabs them a booth, grateful beyond belief to see Rosa still in her uniform. He deliberately leads Alex to Rosa’s section, a hand on his back without even thinking about it, but Alex gives him a strange look.

It takes Michael a few seconds to remember that it’s ten years ago and the people of Roswell aren’t exactly paragons of tolerance.

Fuck them. He presses his hand even harder to Alex’s back as they slide into the booth. 

“Boys,” Rosa says with amusement when Michael crowds onto the same side of the booth as Alex. She taps her pen against the order pad. “What can I get you two?” she asks, her smirk definitely pleased with herself, like she’s just managed to get a hot piece of gossip.

She’s not the first to know. Michael would tell her to wipe the smile off her face, but he doubts she wants to hear how Max already knew (and he really doubts Alex wants to know about how Max could read them so easily).

“Chocolate milkshake, small fries,” Michael orders, already knowing what Alex intends to do those fries, but he doesn’t care. He’s not sure he could eat anything, his stomach is in so much turmoil, his heart pounding, his eyes never leaving Rosa as he tracks her through the diner.

Eventually, Alex notices.

“I don’t think she’s going to run away with our order,” he teases, staring at Michael like he’s in awe of him. 

At least Alex doesn’t think Michael’s got a thing for Liz’s sister.

He forces himself to look away. Rosa’s still here, she’s still in her uniform, and he already knows from the future that she’s going to run into Max after the sun goes down, and seeing as it’s barely dusk, he’s still got time. 

It hits him, belatedly, that he and Alex are sitting in the Crashdown on a date. Apart from the drive-in that went disastrously by the end, they’ve never had this and Michael suddenly feels nervous for brand new reasons. 

“You’re not worried someone’s going to see us?” Alex asks, and there’s something in the way he’s trying to put space between them that says he is. 

Of course he is. He knows what Jesse Manes will do to him if this gets around town. Michael knows, too, because he’s lived through it at least two dozen times in these loops.

“Alex,” Michael says, reaching down to squeeze his hand. “I don’t give a shit who sees us, so long as I’m with you.” He doesn’t tell Alex that if Jesse comes after them, he plans to flip the script and might go after him with a hammer of his own, but he thinks it – and he’s thought about it a _lot_. “Are you ashamed of _me_?”

“No,” Alex breathes out, shaking his head. “Never. You saw what happened with Valenti and his asshole friends at prom, though. People aren’t exactly my biggest fan.”

“So?” Michael shrugs. “I did see what happened. I saw you being brave and strong and sticking up for yourself. I’ve always thought you were the strongest person I’ve ever met,” he admits, which is true, because he’d watched Alex with his bruises and bumps, suspecting where they’d come from, and watching how Alex still seemed to thrive with happiness, being who he is, going after what he wants.

He reaches over to tangle his fingers into the cuff chain around his neck, easing Alex just a little closer so he can press a chaste kiss to his lips. 

“This makes everything go quiet, too,” he admits, and eases back to stare at Alex, barely noticing that Rosa’s placed their milkshake and two straws on the table. He reaches back to drag the shake between the two of them, sliding a straw in. Once he takes his first sip, it occurs to him to ask something he never has. “How’d you know?”

“What?” Alex asks, glancing up from stealing the plate of fries to start alternating between sucking on the straw and dipping them.

“That you were, you know…” He might be willing to kiss Alex in public, but he’s still hesitant to say ‘gay’ out loud, because he knows the assholes in this town and getting in a fight today isn’t in the cards.

Alex bites his lip as he leans back, a dreamy look on his face as he shakes his head. “It’s so stupid,” he laughs.

“I want to know,” Michael insists, and he does, more than anything.

“I mean, I guess it’s not that different from anyone else? My brothers and I used to watch television and they’d have crushes on Alyssa Milano or Sarah Michelle Gellar,” he lists. “Except that I was way more preoccupied with Justin Timberlake,” Alex confesses, rubbing the straw side to side over his lower lip. “I guess I’ve always liked guys with curls. And you? When did you figure it out?”

Michael’s brow furrows, because he really thought he’d been obvious about it.

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, seriously,” Alex lets out a huff of laughter. “When’d you know?”

He thinks that it’d been there, buried deep, for months during their last semester at school. How he’d let his gaze linger over guys modelling boxer shorts in ads a little too long, the way his eyes would flick between the guy and the girl when he watched porn, but there’s only one real answer to this question.

“The minute you tried to kiss me,” he says. “It all clicked. I knew at prom. I knew when I stole your guitar. I just didn’t know that I knew, yet.”

That soft look is back on Alex’s face, the same one he’d worn the night that Alex had given him his brother’s guitar before he’d leaned in and changed Michael’s world. “Really?” he murmurs, gaze flicking towards Michael’s lips. 

Fuck, he can’t take this.

Michael leans in and kisses Alex, the way he should have the first time he’d seen that look. He only drifts back because the fries are going to get cold and the shake will start sweating condensation and oh, right, he needs to stop Noah from murdering those girls. 

Undo the worst part of this day and put off the best part. Stick to the plan.

They sit there talking for the hours that they would have spent sleeping together for the first time. Michael learns all of Alex’s dreams for the future, they talk about their favorite movies, though Michael finds himself almost slipping once or twice, nearly talking about something that hasn’t come out yet. 

By the time the sun dips past the horizon, he’s learned more about Alex than he has in the last decade, but there’s no time to marvel at that. 

Now that it’s dark and Rosa’s shift is over, it’s a matter of keeping Rosa nearby and he needs Alex to do it, because he has another job for Max. “Hey,” he murmurs to Alex, heart pounding a little as the reality of his plan begins to dawn on him. “I need to ask you something weird, but you need to do it for me. Please?”

Alex looks a little concerned about what’s coming next, but he nods.

“Don’t let Rosa leave. No matter what,” he says, and he can tell that Alex is weirded out by this by the look on his face. “Buy her a milkshake, ask her for dating advice, make her sing the whole Third Eye Blind catalogue to you, I don’t know, but _please_. I need to go see Max and do something, but I’ll be back after. I promise.”

“It means that much to you?” Michael nods and even though Alex doesn’t seem like he understands, that’s enough. “Okay,” he says, and leans back. “Rosa, hey!” he calls her over while Michael slips out of the booth.

He’s just in time to hear Alex asking if she’ll give him a temporary tattoo for a date that he’s going on later. He can hear Rosa talking about how she needs to go, but Alex is persistent and determined, unwilling to yield. At one point, Michael even overhears him implying that he’ll tell her about Liz’s love life if she sticks around.

Michael has to pause a second to admire his determination, thinking that if he hadn’t managed to get this chance to come back to the past, Alex would’ve found a way to fix things and fight for him in the future eventually, once they got back to remembering who they were. 

He doesn’t have time for that now. 

He ducks his way through the kitchen, ignoring protests that he can’t be there, and makes his way to the back alley, finding Max in time to see him slipping a letter under the windshield wiper. He startles when Michael closes the door with a clang, but there’s nothing but confusion on his face when he sees who it is. “Michael?”

“We need to get Isobel. Now.” 

“I don’t feel her in any pain, she’s fine,” Max protests.

“It’s because she’s not there,” Michael guarantees, grabbing Max by the shoulder. “Get in, drive to the caves, and we might just make it in time.” 

Max doesn’t look like he’s fully understanding or on board with Michael’s demands, but there’s no time for arguing. He pushes Max towards the car, forcing them inside because they don’t have much time. 

“I’m fixing things,” Michael insists aloud, like he’s pepping himself up, convincing himself that this won’t lead to a worse future, that by doing this, he’s going to get the chance he deserves with Alex to do it right from the start. 

Max inhales, shakes his head, then sticks his keys in the engine. “Fine,” he relents. “But when we get there and everything is fine…”

“Drive!” Michael shouts, slamming the door and buckling up.

Every time Max isn’t going fast enough, Michael uses his powers to step on the gas a little more, ignoring Max’s protests that he’s going to get them killed. The second they arrive at the caves, he can hear voices, three of them. 

They’re not too late.

“Isobel!” Michael shouts, sprinting from the car to where he can see Kate and Jasmine heading towards the cave. He has no idea what Noah did while inside Isobel’s body to get them to show up, but they’re here. Maybe he implied there’d be a drug deal going down or something else, but he remembers where they’d been laying, which means he knows exactly how much time he has. “Noah!” he snaps, louder, angrier, and when Isobel turns to look at him, that’s not his sister.

That’s Noah, furious and present.

“What the fuck, Guerin?” Jasmine scoffs, with heavy disgust, but he doesn’t have time to warn them before Isobel presses a hand to each of the girl’s heads, the both of them collapsing.

Shit, are they too late? 

No, no, they’re still okay. He can see them on the ground, unconscious but breathing. 

“Stay out of this,” Noah warns, wearing Isobel’s body and using her voice.

“Fuck you, no,” Michael snaps, hearing Max stumble up behind him, staring at the girls in shock, then Isobel. “It’s not her, Max, it’s not.”

“She’s mine,” Noah says, but Michael knows better than that. When he’d charged in here the first time and called her name, it had been like he’d managed to break through. He knows that with him and Max here, they’re stronger than a broken alien still in his pod. 

Michael shakes his head and keeps approaching. Noah might think he’s got the upper edge, but Michael has ten years of experience with his powers and a decade of knowledge, even if he’s only started to understand how much they’ve been lied to over the last decade.

“Isobel, listen to me,” Michael hisses. “I know you’re in there. We’re here! Max and I are here, and even if we go on road trips or to school, we’re _never going to leave you_. We’ll drag you with us to California and you can sit in the back seat while Max stares dreamily at Liz or I’ll make you come with me to UNM because god knows I don’t know how to decorate a room…” 

He's getting frantic, but he can see Isobel wavering, a tic in her eye, like Noah is struggling to hold onto his control.

“What happened in the desert, it won’t happen again,” Max promises, stepping up like he’s figured out what’s going on. “Michael’s right. We’re going to live our lives, but you’re a part of them, Isobel, you’re always going to be. You’re our sister.” 

“Max?” 

That small voice, that’s Isobel, and Michael knows they’re getting through.

“Push him out, Iz,” he encourages, bounding those last steps forward to wrap his arms around her, hugging her tight as he strokes her hair, while Max is on the other side to hold her. Hold her and keep her in, in case she tries to do anything, but he thinks that she’s stronger than she knows. 

She exhales in one long push of breath and then Isobel goes still. Her eyes flutter and then turns her gaze around in a panic, finally latching on Michael, then Max, her anxiety rising. 

“What am I doing out here? Where am I?”

“Hey, it’s okay,” Michael soothes, knowing that this looks bad, but considering how many times he's lived through it being so much worse, he’s feeling pretty ecstatic right now. “You’re back to yourself, you’re you. Nothing happened.” At least, nothing that they can’t undo, because he’s going to be able to drop the girls back and unless they want to talk about going to the desert to buy drugs, Isobel’s reputation should stay safe.

Isobel shakes her head, blinking rapidly. “I was downtown and then everything went blank…”

“It’s okay. Michael knew that something was happening,” Max says, with a suspicious look over her head. “How _did_ you know?”

“Would you believe me if I told you I was from the future?” he quips.

Isobel and Max gape at him, but funny enough, telling aliens about time travel doesn’t immediately make them argue, so maybe he should have been telling them about his time loops a whole lot earlier. 

“Then what do we do next?” Max asks, which is a miracle in and of itself. He’d tease him, but Michael’s kind of exhausted and he’s a little touched that Max is actually giving him control of their lives for once. It’s so _different_ from the first time and he’s so tired that he’s sure the shock shows on his face.

Lucky that he knows what has to be done.

“In the desert, underneath the place we went camping when we were thirteen,” Michael says. “There’s another alien there, but he’s not like us, he’s been there for too long, he’s broken,” he shares in a frantic panic, trying to get this out. “You have to, I don’t know, do something, stop him from getting out? He’s been using you, Isobel, he was gonna use you to kill these girls and Rosa.”

He can hear the fraught emotion in his teenage voice, but he’s so close to fixing this. 

For a second, it doesn’t look like they believe him. They might believe in time travel, but another alien in a pod controlling Isobel? Apparently, that’s too much. Michael’s eyes are wide with panic because he doesn’t think he can live through this day again. He can’t. 

“Please! You have to believe me!” he shouts, wondering if the longer he spends in this loop, the more he’s regressing back to the emotional maturity he had at seventeen (not that he’s gained that much in the ensuing ten years).

“We’ll go check it out,” Max promises, even as he holds Isobel close. “Do you know how we’re supposed to stop him?”

“I don’t know,” Michael admits. “Make him sleep,” he says, almost on the heels of it. He’s not sure he can bear the idea of killing an alien, not even a piece of shit like Noah, but maybe that’s all they need to do. “He’s been awake for sixty years, Iz, can you, could you, put him back to sleep?”

“I can try,” she promises. 

He and Max exchange a look, Michael hating the silent conversation they’re having. Max nods, and Michael immediately knows that if Isobel isn’t strong enough to put him to sleep with her mind, Max will make sure that he doesn’t have a chance to use Isobel because he’ll end it the same way he did with the drifter.

Maybe Noah’s not powerful enough yet because he hasn’t been out and killing or practicing with his powers. Maybe they still have a chance to do this without the body count piling up.

“Get the girls home,” Max says. “Then be safe. You’re sure you don’t want to come with us?”

He shakes his head, because he already knows that as soon as he drops the girls off at their place, he’s got a date at the diner to pick up Alex. He’d made him a promise and he needs to get back to him, because at the end of all of this, that’s what it’s about.

Today’s about fixing things with Alex, which means fixing _everything_.

Besides, if he’s wrong, then he figures he’s just bound to repeat the day again.

The drive back to the diner after he drops off the girls and settles them on their front porches is exhilarating. His hand is fully intact, Max and Isobel are going to deal with Noah, and the girls are all still alive. Sure, he couldn’t figure out how to get Jesse out of the picture or how to stop Isobel’s blackouts, but he can deal with a few loose ends. After all, when he pulls up to the diner, there’s Alex sitting and waiting for him, and he can tolerate a hell of a lot for him.

His hair is spiked, he’s still wearing that vest over his t-shirt, and he’s the most beautiful thing that Michael has ever seen in his life. 

“Hey,” Alex greets him, standing up from the bench outside the Crashdown and leaning with his forearms against the open passenger window of Michael’s truck. “I almost gave up on waiting for you. Is everything okay?”

Though he doesn’t have a strong connection with them, he checks in and confirms that there’s no pain, no worry, and no panic. Isobel isn’t lying facedown in the dirt, Max isn’t overwhelmed by someone else’s power, and he takes that to mean that Noah hasn’t escaped.

Alex has sharpie all over his forearm, roses being eaten by snakes and a beautiful woman (who looks weirdly like Isobel, which Michael doesn’t have the energy to think about right now) controlling them all. “I mean, I’m worried I’m gonna lose you to a biker gang,” he jokes, gesturing to Rosa’s work all over Alex’s arm, but he’s smiling and his heart is pounding. “You wanna go for a ride?”

This time, Alex doesn’t walk away. 

Instead, he gets in the truck and closes the door behind him. “Where’re we going?”

Breathless and feeling free, Michael shifts the car into drive. “I was thinking we could go anywhere, do anything.” 

That’s how they spend the night. For the first time, the day ends with hope for _everyone_ and though he and Alex don’t do anything more than make out in the back of the truck, Michael feels more connected to him than he ever has before. They fall asleep back there, tangled together, and now Michael has the puzzle pieces figured out.

If he has to do this all over, he knows he won’t change a thing.

* * *

And then, Michael wakes up.


	2. Chapter 2

He wakes up, but he’s not in his seventeen-year-old body. 

He’s twenty-seven and he’s in the half-built ship, his hands on the console. It takes Michael a long beat before he processes the last thirty-three days that he’s lived, but he’s _sure_ they happened. His fingers drag over the curving alien ship pieces and he ends up staring at his hands, noticing two very strange things.

The first is that his left hand is _whole_ ; not a scar or a bruise or misshapen bone to be seen. Then, he sees a titanium band on his left ring finger (with a sound wave pattern carved into it) that snaps him back to reality. He’d come down here to work on the ship, and when he’d been working on the navigation and the dashboard, he’d been thrown into simulations of Rosa’s death, of his first time with Alex, but where did the ring come from? Why is he healed?

He climbs upstairs from the basement he’s in (and that’s another weird thing, because he’s in a basement and not his bunker) to find Alex Manes making his way to the basement door and towards Michael with swift strides, determination etched on his face. 

Michael approaches, warily, and realizes that Alex isn’t wearing a prosthetic, because he’s got both his legs and that he’s looking for _him_.

“What did you do?” Alex asks him warily. 

Michael stares at him as memories start to flood his head, invading like the worst migraine he’s ever had in his life. He remembers every single loop (all thirty-three of them), but when he’d finished with the last loop, he’d woken up and it had been the day _after_. His consciousness had come back to the future, but his mind and body had stayed in the past.

Seventeen and ready to live a real life. Only seventeen and ready to change things because they didn’t go wrong. 

When the pain in his head fades, he can start to put the pieces together and he lets himself drift back to new-old memories; in this case, the fall of 2008, the summer after graduation, and the realization that he remembers going to UNM. 

He remembers walking across the stage at graduation with Alex, Max, Isobel, and Liz in the crowd applauding for him. He remembers getting his doctorate. He remembers the harrowing night he told Alex everything (years before he ever did in the original timeline). 

While his memories are settling, Alex stares at him in disbelief and wonder, like he’s going through the same process himself. While they gape at each other, memories filtering into place, Michael’s phone keeps going off persistently. 

“What? What’s going on?” Michael asks warily, because Alex looks so unsure and the frantic phone notifications are probably something to worry about. “Is it Noah? Do we need to worry about him?”

He knows they don’t, though, because in his memories, he remembers Max and Cameron arresting Noah, Liz using a serum to render Noah powerless, but alive. This had been years after Max and Isobel had gone into the desert and Isobel had rendered Noah unconscious in a pod with her powers, at seventeen, so that he couldn’t get out and develop his abilities.

Except, that didn’t happen in the original timeline. It’s a new memory, something he only vaguely remembers happening, but it’s done the trick. It had bought them time and it had saved lives.

“Thirty-three times,” Alex says, as Michael picks up his phone and sees texts from Isobel, Max, and Liz. Each text is filled with gratitude and praise and Michael has to look away before the emotion of it can overwhelm him. “I think I’ve been laid more in the last day than ever before in my life,” he jokes, but he’s drifting closer to Michael and they connect as soon as they’re close enough to. Alex kisses him proudly, bursting with love, and he doesn’t let go of Michael as he drifts backwards, hands wrapped around Michael’s neck and keeping him close, like he’s afraid to let him drift too far.

Michael doesn’t have to ask why.

Some of those loops had been horrific. He remembers, now, that he’d been in Caulfield in one of them, a name he only knows because of this new timeline. Michael doesn’t tell Alex to stop, because he needs this tight embrace just as much. 

“You remember all of it? Were you looping with me, cuz you definitely didn’t say anything?”

Alex shakes his head. “No,” he admits. “No, but when I woke up this morning, it was like the memories of all your attempts were in my head after the timeline rooted. I think you travelled back in time, I think you kept reliving the day until you got it right, but the way you wanted it to be.” There’s an unnerved look on his face, like he realizes the power of whatever Michael had used to go back. “We can’t let that technology fall into anyone else’s hands.” Michael doesn’t need Alex to say anything else, because even though they’re both still processing new memories, they both know how _good_ this life is, how much better than the last, and no one’s going to undo that. “We need to get to the Crashdown before the others invade our house, come on.”

He’d fixed it. It feels impossible to believe, but Michael’s in a daze as he realizes that he’s _fixed it_.

Michael had only wanted to fix things between him and Alex.

Without even meaning to, he’d fixed it for Isobel as well, for Max and Liz, and when he sees Rosa later at the Crashdown playing with a child, it almost knocks the wind out of him.

It’s been a roller coaster of shocks, so much so that Michael hasn’t even spent much time thinking about the ring on his finger or the memories of that quiet little wedding under the gazebo in town while he spoke quiet vows to Alex. It had been right after he’d finished his masters, after Alex had finished his degree in programming and earned his first gig contracting with the government as a codebreaker. He remembers, with an aching emotional punch, how his mother had been there to see it, even though she hadn’t had much time left.

Besides, there are other things to focus on, because Rosa Ortecho is alive and well, nearly thirty and not looking a single day of it. 

“Hey Guerin! My dad says you and Alex miss one more dinner and he’s going to put your picture on the banned wall,” says Rosa Ortecho, and Michael breathes out as he feels Alex squeeze his hand. “Isobel’s here,” Rosa says. “And everyone else.” He feels frozen, but Alex pokes at him, which gets him moving. He heads inside to join Liz, Max, and Isobel at the quietest booth, jamming himself in with an ease he swears he hasn’t felt since he was a teen, Alex following after him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Rosa playing with a kid, a three-year-old.

No, not just any kid. That’s his nephew.

Holy shit, what did he do?

“Michael, what did you do?” Max hisses under his breath. “I woke up today with this other life in my head, this new life, and thirty-three versions of that same awful day.”

“I don’t know,” he replies, leaning forward to whisper his words back. He’s glad he’s not the only insane one here. “We all remember the original, right? Noah hijacks Iz, kills Rosa and those girls? That happened, right, we’re not crazy?”

Around the table, everyone is nodding, slowly.

“Maria doesn’t remember and I don’t _think_ Kyle does,” Isobel says, and Michael stares at her for a long time trying to figure out _why_ she knows that until new memories slot into place and Michael stares at his sister with new appreciation. “Why us?”

“Contact?” Liz estimates. “Michael, you were the main one working with it, but you and Isobel and Max are all connected to the ship because of your pods. I spent time with it scraping samples to assess the organic structure when we were working to cure Isobel. Alex,” she trails off, staring at Alex like she’s only realizing with a new memory why Alex is remembering. “You’ve had a piece of your own from the cabin,” she says, “and you’ve had your hands all over it trying to decode it. Maybe we all got tuned in to the right channel because the pieces are all connected, which means we are too?”

Whatever it is, Michael feels really, stupidly, selfishly happy that he’s not the only one in this mess. “So what does that mean? Is this now reality and that other life is gonna fade? Which one’s the real timeline?”

Alex keeps running his hand over Michael’s knee and squeezing to show his support, but he’s brimming with excitement. Honestly, they all have this manic energy, like they can’t exactly believe what’s happening and while no one’s saying it, Michael has the feeling they’re all thinking the same thing.

It’s Isobel who’s finally brave enough to do it. “Screw the original,” she says. “I know this one isn’t perfect, but no one’s using me as a puppet and I didn’t have a fake marriage to a serial killer,” she says, reaching for a fry to wave it around to help prove her point.

Max glances around their group, then out to where the rest of the world is continuing on, not even knowing that they’ve lived through anything else. “What are we saying here?”

“I think we’re saying that we live this life because it’s definitely better than the alternative even if we’ll all probably feel like imposters for a while,” Liz replies, placing her hand over Max’s (and huh, looks like Michael isn’t the only one who woke up with a wedding ring today). “We can talk on the phone or support each other when we feel like our heads are splitting into two different worlds, but we take advantage of this and we neutralize that piece of tech. Can you do that?” she asks Michael.

“Yeah,” he says, though he’s not sure how yet. “I’ll figure out a way to deactivate it while still allowing it to be part of the ship, in case we ever need to use it.”

She doesn’t have to say it out loud, but Michael knows what she’s thinking.

It’s because he’s thinking it too.

Sure, he’d fixed things, but what if someone else gets their hands on the piece and somehow undoes all of their hard work? His immediate next step needs to be de-activating the technology in a safe way that doesn’t rule out the chance to still go home, and then, the only goal Michael has is to live this new life of his and figure out what it looks like.

There’s so much going on in his head and as the revelations settle, Michael suspects he’s about to learn a whole lot about his family and friends.

It’s time for him to stop waking up on the same day and start waking up to his new life.

* * *

Even though the memories are as real as anything else, Michael feels like he needs _time_ to get to know this new reality. 

He starts with Max, who looks happier than Michael can ever remember seeing him. When they’d prevented Rosa’s death that night, it meant that he’d been free to follow after Liz and join her on her road trip. It’d turned out that during their first time, he’d blown the lights and wound up telling her the truth about aliens, though Michael and Isobel didn’t find out about that for years.

Liz Ortecho (well, Liz Ortecho-Evans now) is damn good at keeping a secret.

They got married in 2010 and had a kid three years back. Michael is still trying to figure out how he feels knowing that he has a three-year-old nephew named Leo (fucking Max and his Tolstoy), but also that he’s his godfather and has been mentoring the kid because even though he’s only half-alien, he’s got some low-level telekinesis.

In his head, amongst all the new memories, he can remember sliding into bed with Alex and boasting about how Leo thinks he’s the best uncle because he’d manifested powers just so he could be more like Uncle Michael.

Alex had entertained him with a hum and a nod, because deep down, everyone and their neighbor knows that Alex is the _real_ favorite.

It feels a little like being a double agent, which Max shares his agreement with when Michael drops by to visit his family, trying to shake the feeling that he’s a stranger to Leo. 

“It’s the weirdest shit,” Max says under his breath, when they’re sure that little ears are no longer listening to them. “Sometimes, I’ll say something and it takes me ages to realize that it didn’t happen in this reality. With Liz, it’s fine, but it’s awful with Cameron. Having knowledge of what it’s like to have sex with her when she’s around,” he says, voice pitched lower, “it gets pretty awkward.”

“Don’t tell her that,” Michael pleads. 

“Hey, come on, I’m not that stupid,” Max scoffs. “Besides, not being on the force help with that, even if it’s really strange having a sudden career change. Good,” he admits, “but still strange.”

It’s easier between them, Michael realizes, a by-product of the fact that they’re not coping with the guilt of what they’ve done. In this new reality, he and Max have been best friends and brothers for another ten years and it’s so easy to sit around with a couple of beers and talk like this.

“So,” Michael prods. “What happened after that night? How’d it go differently?”

“C’mon man, you know this,” Max protests. “I know you know this, because you were one of my best men, you gave the speech at my wedding.”

He does remember, but he likes hearing it. “Oh, come on, I’m entertaining your romantic-ass heart.” He also knows that Max loves to tell the story. “Besides, you’re right, sometimes it’s like they’re fighting in my head and I want to hear the good one,” he insists. “Tell me your romantic love story and happy ending and me and Alex will take Leo to the zoo this weekend?”

Max scoffs, staring at him in disbelief. “As if you don’t love doing that.”

“You saying you don’t want a day off?”

Max’s eyes widen a little. “Let’s not get hasty,” he hurries. “Okay, okay, fine!” he laughs as he exhales, shaking his head. “The night Rosa should have died, I never got to give Liz the letter because you yanked me out of there before I could, but that actually turned out better because I met up with her the next day and I told her everything that I’d written down.”

When Michael glances to the fireplace, his eye catches the framed letter, still folded up in the fancy little origami shape. 

“We talked and we decided that we would do part of the road trip together,” Max narrates, and honestly, Michael knows part of this, but not all of it. He and Max might have a better relationship in this timeline, but he’s still not ready to encourage sex stories about his brother. “We did California together and we kissed at the Four Corners,” he reminisces with a stupid grin on his face.

This part, Michael remembers.

“Because your love couldn’t be contained to just one state,” he echoes along with Max when he says it out loud. “God, that’s cheesy and I went back in time to fix things with my now-husband,” Michael groans.

“You asked for this, asshole!” Max protests, shoving Michael backwards with no real effort. 

“All right, all right, keep going,” he allows, because yes, he did ask for it. 

“We split up when we got back to New Mexico so I could catch my flight to Europe and start on my writing tour,” he admits, “and Liz kept driving east on her trip, but when she went to school, I came back to work on my novel while she studied and I decided to go to school to teach.” 

That’s right, Mr. Evans is a fixture at Roswell High, where the students love to torment him for all the old pictures kicking around of his own time there. 

“I asked her to marry me while we danced to Bright Eyes in the desert, just like our first dance.” Max gives Michael an emotional smile. “I got thirty-three of those dances,” he says with a catch in his voice, something that hadn’t ever occurred to Michael until today. He’s pretty sure that day had also been a best and worst for Max, too. “The thirty-fourth time we danced in that desert to that song, that was when I proposed.” He reaches over and squeezes Michael’s shoulder. “Seriously, man, _thank you_.”

The overly emotional gratitude has got to end sometime, he hopes, but right now, he’s willing to soak it all in. 

That weekend, Michael turns up with Alex at their door to find Leo jumping in the front hallway, wearing a lion’s hat, and Liz giving them both a tired look. “Thank you,” is what she says, foisting a child’s backpack into Alex’s hand. “I have my home lab to work on projects, but some little lions here take up too much of Mommy’s time,” she says, bending to pinch his cheeks.

Leo doesn’t seem set back at all. “Okay, Mommy, bye! Uncle Mikey and Uncle Alex need to take me to the zoo!” comes out in a big rush before he sprints for Alex’s side, wrapping his arms around his leg before reaching with both arms up, his signal that he wants Alex to pick him up.

Liz gives Michael an unimpressed look. “Not even an ‘I love you’, I know when I’ve been replaced,” she says, as Alex hoists him up into his arms. “Be good for your uncles,” Liz warns. 

Leo buries his face in Alex’s neck as he squeezes him with a tight hug, which makes Michael’s heart melt when he sees Alex squeeze right back, whispering something about going to see the lions and monkeys into Leo’s ear. 

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure that he’d forget both of us if Alex told him to, so I get you,” Michael guarantees, pressing a hand to Leo’s back and his other sliding through Alex’s hair as he presses a fond kiss to his temple. “We’ll have him back after dinner, well-fed and hopefully exhausted.”

“Is he going to be exhausted and well-fed or is that you two?” Liz asks, pointing at them.

“Jury’s out,” Alex deadpans. “C’mon monkey,” he says and tips Leo upside-down in his arms, making him scream with delight. “Let’s go to the zoo.” 

They have a car seat in Alex’s truck, there’s an emergency bag with baby supplies in the trunk, and if Michael thinks about it, he’ll remember all the stray baby toys stuffed in a closet at the cabin for when Leo comes over for a sleepover.

It’s a life that Michael genuinely never thought he’d have, not only because of his childhood (and Alex’s too), but one that the original timeline had dashed to pieces in one fiery wreck. It turns out that fixing things meant that they got a chance to allow this kind of love and warmth into their lives. 

Of course, it’s not all peace and joy with a toddler. 

The day at the zoo is _exhausting_ and Michael has to stop Leo from using his powers to float food over to the monkeys more than a few times, which makes him remember that one of Liz’s projects is a low-level dampener because they’re worried about what happens when Leo goes to school and his emotions might get the better of him. For all that he’s so adamantly against dulling their powers, the idea of them taking Leo away means that he has to accept the lesser of the two evils, at least until Leo is old enough to understand the ramifications of using his powers.

That night after they return Leo to his parents, Michael collapses on the couch and his whole body aches. He barely manages to let their dog out and give him dinner, and then he gives up on the idea of a productive night.

“I know I’m not older than I was the first time I was twenty-seven, but holy shit,” he exhales, rubbing his face. “How the hell do Max and Liz do this? I’m fucking exhausted.”

He and Alex have talked about this before, he remembers. They’d sat up for weeks and talked about the possibility of _kids_ soon after they got married.

They’d talked about one of their friends potentially being a surrogate or even just offering eggs for them, but had then decided that nieces and nephews were all that they really wanted. Now, knowing that they’ve been together ten years more than they had the last time, he knows that they’re not exactly making up for lost time, but call Michael selfish, because he doesn’t want to share it, not even with kids. There are other issues there that they don’t talk about as often, but they’re always going to be there -- Michael’s lack of parental figures. Alex’s fear of becoming like his father. 

They could talk each other around, they both know, but it’s never been an issue because having Leo in their lives has always been enough and Max and Liz are always willing to give them more time with him.

“Liz wants another,” Alex shares, hanging up his coat and dropping himself on top of Michael unceremoniously, which makes Michael wince because Alex’s knee landed just to the side of him. “She told me that she and Max are going to start trying and, well, twins do run in your side of the family…”

Michael groans and drops his arm over his eyes. He wishes he could say he gets a second burst of energy that allows him to take advantage of how close Alex is when he’s pressed close to him like this, but he doesn’t. They fall asleep pressed together on the couch, with monkeys dancing around Michael’s dreams, their dog pressed up against the couch.

One of them may be snoring. Truthfully, all three of them probably are. 

They wake up the next morning on the couch, having never made it to bed. 

One day out with a three-year-old and they’ve been defeated. Michael prods at Alex to get him to stop drooling on his shoulder, but he reaches for the blanket so he can tuck them in for another few hours of sleep.

“Bed?” Alex asks tiredly, having the better idea of it, rubbing at his eyes.

Michael grunts. He’s barely conscious, but he’s able to tug Alex into a bridal carry with little protest (mainly because it’s not even five in the morning and they’re both so tired), and he collapses onto the bed once he sets Alex down, shifting when Alex moves in order to spoon him from behind. 

When he texts Liz later in the morning, he tells her that if she ends up having twins, he’s not sure he’s going to survive.

She texts back with _who said any of us would?_

Michael already knows that’s not going to stop her, so he might as well get used to the exhaustion.

* * *

With Isobel, it’s more of a relief to find out that she’s _okay_ than hearing about Max’s happy ending. She’s still living in that beautiful house and it hasn’t changed much, given that Michael now understands that everything had been Isobel’s touch and Noah had been like a leech, glomming onto her life.

When Michael drops by to talk to her, Isobel tells him about using her powers to shut down a weak Noah so he couldn’t hijack her any longer after they’d made sure that Rosa survived. “Max and I went,” she’d explained, because Michael doesn’t remember that. “You had the girls to worry about, and we needed Kate and Jasmine alive and well. It was our problem to take care of after you led us there.”

How do you ask how she’d done it, when a part of you has always worried that she wouldn’t be strong enough?

“Iz,” he starts, feeling awkward.

Luckily, Isobel’s ready to cut through his bullshit. “How did I do it? You always danced around asking,” she notes. “It’s not that complicated of an answer. You know how I did it? I didn’t do it alone,” she says. “I had Max, and I brought him in with me. We’ve always been connected and that night, it was the most powerful that I’ve ever felt knowing that he was there with me, knowing you led us to him. You gave me an answer to something I didn’t even know was a problem,” Isobel admits. “Now, knowing what you prevented…”

How can he tell her that he hadn’t even gone back to try to fix things for Isobel? That’s a secret he thinks he’ll take to the grave. 

“You’re good, though, right? This new timeline, you’re okay? I know you don’t have the happy ‘everything is perfect’ marriage that you want the town to see…”

“Fuck the town,” Isobel cuts him off. “I was so obsessed with being the perfect daughter, the perfect student, the perfect everything,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “After we put Noah to sleep and I kept having my blackouts, I went to Mom and I begged for therapy. That helped, a lot,” she confesses. “I took a year off after high school and I got to the same place I always meant to, but no picture-perfect marriage required.”

“You’re not alone though,” he quips with a smirk, because he remembers enough of Isobel’s confiding to know that she’s definitely not doing this on her own.

“Trust me, that part is very strange, but _very_ nice,” Isobel tells Michael. “I think I’m seeing Kyle,” she says. “And Maria?” 

Honestly, that’s got Michael’s respect and when he slides into his memories, he remembers the first time Isobel told him about this, drunk on gin and acetone, when she’d asked him advice about which one to choose to date and the decision of _neither_ had been the winner of the night. Michael also remembers watching Iz stare after Rosa when she’d finish fooling around with Kyle or Maria (or sometimes both, which, get it Isobel, thinks Michael) and decides that even in this new reality, Isobel’s fucked up love life trumps all.

“Seeing them?” Michael echoes, because he has memories of enough late-night drunken conversations with Isobel to know better.

She doesn’t blush, which makes her a stronger woman than Michael would ever be.

“Fine, we’re friends with benefits. Sometimes me and Maria, sometimes me and Kyle, and sometimes all three of us share in the benefits.” 

Go, go, bisexual alien club.

“Honestly, you’re still the envy of the town,” Michael informs her. “Screw the perfect marriage, you have those two on speed dial for booty calls? Damn, Isobel, you never did do anything by halves.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. I think Liz and you get your fair share of envy,” Isobel counters. “I hear a lot of pining around the town about Mr. Evans, the sexy English teacher, not to mention how every time it’s singles night at the Pony, Maria makes bank on the fact that all the visiting gays are mourning that wedding ring on Alex’s finger.”

Michael grins smugly. “Damn right, they should be upset.”

They sit up and talk until the early morning, cracking open a few new bottles of wine as they catch up. Michael feels better knowing that even though Isobel has given up the desperate chase for elusive perfection, she’s still accomplishing everything like the overachiever she is. He glances at his watch when he starts yawning, knowing that he needs to get home before he gets one of Alex’s patented ‘I’m disappointed in you’ looks.

“Hey,” Michael says, when he’s leaving, pausing at the door as a _genius_ idea hits him. “You wanna come somewhere with me and Alex?”

Maybe he can still apply fixes to their lives without using alien technology, starting with Isobel’s love life. 

It's how they end up at a gay club in Santa Fe (and not Albuquerque because if Michael runs into one of his students on a night out like this, he may die of humiliation). Isobel’s decked out in a jaw-dropping silver pantsuit with a plunging neckline that Michael may not be completely comfortable with, though Alex is clearly thrilled with Isobel’s choices. He’s being fashion-forward himself (or so he says), wearing a mesh tank top and a pair of jeans that are so tight, the entire club probably knows what his husband’s dick looks like. 

Alex is also very drunk because he’s been sneaking tequila shots since they left the hotel.

Michael’s the only one who knows that he’s drinking because he’s nervous about the fact that they invited a special guest to join them. He didn’t exactly dress up, unless you count his usual jeans, belt buckle, and a black t-shirt as dressing up, but with Alex on his arm, he’s got plenty of attention.

“Okay,” Isobel admits above the music, sipping her gin and tonic. “I guess this place isn’t the worst!” 

“That’s a huge compliment coming from you!”

Isobel turns, stunned, and finds Rosa Ortecho standing just behind her. Michael grins when he sees what Rosa is wearing, because if half the women in the club weren’t thirsty before, they just went parched. Rosa’s leather jacket is draped over her arm and she’s wearing a backless red halter top, leather pants, and biker boots.

What’s more interesting is that she’s not wearing red lipstick. Michael knows from Liz that it’s considered to be armor and its lack of presence is a very good sign.

“Hey!” Alex shouts, way too loudly. “Her nails are…”

Michael turns and grabs Alex by the neck so he can kiss him into shutting up before everyone around them can also notice the fact that Rosa definitely cut her nails before painting them with black lacquer.

“You are so lucky you’re pretty because you’re an obnoxious drunk,” Michael mumbles against Alex’s lips as he rests his forehead against his husband’s, not eager to drift away just yet. “Don’t ruin it,” he warns, wrapping his arms around Alex’s waist so he can maneuver himself into a position where he can watch the show.

Rosa’s licking her lips, clearly nervous to be here, which isn’t going to help matters. Isobel’s staring back at her like she wants to say something, but neither of them make the first move, which means Michael’s going to have to do some prodding.

“Hope you don’t mind that we invited some company,” Michael cuts in, figuring he should explain. “Rosa’s always been wanting to come out with us and I figured the more the merrier!”

Isobel nods, still looking fairly stunned.

Rosa steps forward and presses two fingers to Isobel’s clavicle, sliding them down as they trace a path down the exposed skin of her front, ending just below Isobel’s navel.

Shit, _Michael_ ’s thirsty all of a sudden.

“You look good, blondie,” Rosa praises, withdrawing her hand as she leans over the bar to ask for a glass of water, sipping it through her straw when the bartender slides it over. She turns to study Isobel again, before extending a hand. “Wanna dance?”

Isobel glances to Michael to ask him to join (as if he would _ever_ ). He scoffs and shakes his head, because his family should know him better. Then she turns to Alex, who disentwines from Michael because he _does_ want to dance. “Go,” Michael shoos them away, plunking down on a stool at the bar because he’s trying to take it easy tonight for everyone’s sake. The music is upbeat and cheerful and Rosa drapes her jacket over Michael’s lap before she heads out, tugging Isobel by both hands and swaying with the sound, reaching for Alex when he’s in danger of being claimed by another group.

He’s too far to hear them, but the joy is easy to read on their faces. Isobel and Alex are definitely drunk, but Rosa’s not, and the way she keeps looking at Isobel feels like it’s _something_. Michael is so sure that tonight is going to be it, this is going to be when Rosa makes her move or Isobel _realizes_ that she’s the one Rosa keeps staring at.

“He’s crazy hot, you planning on trying for his number?” some guy says to Michael, when he follows Michael’s line of sight and sees that it ends right on Alex, who might be dancing with Rosa and Isobel, but is angled towards Michael, body moving in ways that Michael hadn’t known it could do.

It’s not like they go dancing that often because Michael is _terrible_ at it. They did a few waltzes at the small ceremony when they got hitched, but that had been enough to put them off it for a while.

“I think I have enough of his numbers,” Michael says in return, holding up his left hand to point at the ring. “Married!”

The guy makes a disappointed sound, like he’d been hoping that Michael would either try and fail or tell him to jump the line. Alex keeps dancing with the girls, but eventually he slides out of the crowd to make his way back to the bar, draping an arm around Michael’s shoulders, still bouncing to the music. 

“Well? You think they’re ready?” Alex asks, leaning back to get another set of drinks for them, eyes fixed on Isobel and Rosa – the latter of which is tucking a strand of hair behind Isobel’s ears.

Michael scoffs and shakes his head. “Fuck, I hope so. I really don’t want to have to go with DeLuca’s idea to play spin the bottle, because I refuse to potentially have to kiss my siblings,” he says with a shudder. He accepts the tequila shot from Alex, saluting him with it before knocking it down the hatch, digging out his flask of acetone for a chaser. 

“You’re sure you don’t want to dance?” Alex asks, rubbing his palm over Michael’s thigh.

Glancing up at him, he holds Alex’s gaze for a long moment. “Nah, not drunk enough,” he says, but he tips his chin up so that Alex can take the hint and lean down to press three kisses against his lips, nose, and forehead. “Rain check, though. I wouldn’t mind a slow dance next time we’re alone.”

Alex nods, biting his lips, but he’s still moving to the beat and Michael rolls his eyes. He pushes Alex back towards the crowd, telling him to go and dance because he clearly wants to and Michael’s only going to ruin the vibe. He settles himself comfortably on a stool and watches with pride and happiness as the girls sandwich Alex, protecting him (which Rosa winks at Michael, like she’s expecting some kind of gift of gratitude from him for doing it). 

He drapes her leather jacket over his lap and waits for _it_ to happen.

He’s got no idea what it’ll be, but he can feel the tension simmering and ready to boil over. Michael swears that it can’t last forever. Every time they dance pressed up together or Isobel looks too long, Michael leans forward in anticipation, but nothing happens. 

It's two in the morning and nothing has happened other than the four of them getting too tired to keep doing this. They might still pretend they’re young, but Rosa is about to turn thirty and honestly, Michael is too old for this shit. When they come back to him and tell him to order an uber, he does as he’s commanded, all while Alex drunkenly drapes himself over his shoulder, reeking of sweat and tequila.

At least someone got to live it up tonight.

“Hey Mikey,” Rosa drawls, even though she knows how much he hates that and that Leo is the only one allowed to call him that. “Where’s our ride?”

He scowls at her, but corrals the group outside when the van arrives, pushing them inside. Isobel and Rosa take the middle and Michael helps Alex into the back, settling in for the ride back to the hotel.

The girls sit tangled up together, laughing loudly about the dancing and the guy that kept trying to hit on them, bursts of joy exuding from both of them. Isobel’s wearing Rosa’s leather jacket over her shoulders and she’s got her fingers in Rosa’s hair to pry out the bobby pins keeping her half-updo in place. Alex is snoring on Michael’s shoulder (the tequila definitely got to him), but Michael’s staring at them both in the van like he’s waiting for it to happen.

Any second now, Rosa is going to kiss Isobel.

Isobel is going to let her and then she’ll say something like, ‘I’ve always wanted you, too.’

None of that happens, though. 

Instead, he has to prod Alex to wake him up when they get to their hotel, wrapping his arm around Alex to carry him inside (with his telekinesis helping to keep him vertical, but who’s going to notice?) and they walk the girls to their rooms. He’s hoping that Isobel will follow Rosa inside, but she leans down to brush a kiss to the corner of her lips, thanks her for the incredible night, and then Rosa vanishes inside of her own, separate room.

Michael helps Alex along and stares at Isobel in disbelief. “Seriously?”

“What?” Isobel asks, swaying a little from the effects of both the acetone and the alcohol.

If Michael has to use the alien tech again to fix Isobel’s love life, he’s going to be so pissed off. How can someone be so _clueless_? He’s about to lay into her about how she needs to open her eyes, but then Alex comes around from his stupor, rejoining the land of the conscious.

“Michael,” he mumbles, “Get inside and take my clothes off, I’m tired.”

He guesses that dealing with Isobel’s insane romantic situation is going to have to wait for later. “Seriously,” is all he says, one more time, giving her a pointed look. “You should know better,” is his last accusation, but he knows that tonight’s a bust, helping to heft Alex up into his arms so they can go back to their own room.

He undresses Alex slowly, helping him into a t-shirt and a pair of pajama pants, all while Alex sways and smiles dreamily, like he’s thinking about something really good. 

“Gonna let me in on the joke?” he asks, poking Alex in the side, making him flinch.

“I was thinking about the club,” he admits. “You and me went out together, and no one wanted to hurt us there. No one wanted to bring a hammer down on your fingers, though I might have needed one to defend you,” he rambles. “You have a bad habit of keeping your mouth open too much...”

“Says the man wearing jeans that are painted onto his perfect ass,” Michael snorts, watching Alex crawl into bed. “I don’t get it. How can Isobel be so blind?”

“You were, too,” Alex reminds him, face buried into a pillow that steals most of his words. “I wanted you way earlier than you even realized I wanted you or do you think I offered my shed to everyone?”

He’s flustered, but he thinks it can’t have been that bad.

“I…what, no, I…”

“No guy ever looked at me the way you did at prom,” Alex guarantees, turning onto his back to sleepily beckon Michael closer. He strips off his clothes until he’s just in his boxers, crawling onto the hotel bed to wrap himself around Alex like a koala. “And you literally cockblocked me with my brother’s guitar when I tried to kiss you.”

“I figured us out in weeks,” Michael feels like he has to defend himself. “It’s been _years_ for her.”

“She’s not ready,” Alex says, eyes closed. “I wasn’t either, the first time around, our original lives,” he admits, his words starting to run together. “Call it fear or anxiety or unwillingness to open yourself up, I get it. I really do. I wish I could tell her that it’s so much better when you let yourself be open to it, but it’s not my life.”

He opens his eyes enough to give Michael a dopey grin.

“This one’s mine,” he says, rubbing his hand over Michael’s bare chest, pressing a possessive kiss to the space above his heart. 

The next day, they go out to breakfast and while Rosa and Isobel aren’t madly confessing their love to one another, Michael watches how they sit hip to hip, how Rosa draws on Isobel’s hand (and Iz _lets_ her), and how Isobel reaches for Rosa’s check when it arrives.

Maybe they’re not ready yet, he thinks, but he has the feeling it won’t take another ten years before they get there.

* * *

In his nightmares, he remembers Caulfield. Even though he’d managed to put everything right the day of Rosa’s death, they couldn’t go so far back as to stop the Manes and Valenti families from ever starting the prison. They had still taken their chance to make things as right as they could, though. Years ago, he and Alex spent time planning and tracking the heat signatures before they’d made their assault after finding some of Jesse Manes’ files.

It happens when Alex has just barely graduated and is still doing weekends with the reserves. It takes them more than one trip because Alex won’t get the memories of his other life for another five years, which means that he’s still a good hacker, but he’s not as badass as he’ll be, later. Still, he’s able to use his father’s name to get access and the skills he does have manages to get him a look at the experiments, the data, and the subjects.

On their fourth visit to Caulfield, Alex has the time to break into the mainframe and figure out the coding they use on the locked doors. They’re able to free some of the more harmless aliens a few at a time.

They’re old, though, and have been tortured for so long that none of them last very long after they escape with them to Max’s place, where they try and learn as much as they can about their home planet before they lose another piece of their past. 

Some even cause the kind of chaos that could’ve been much worse if they were younger, still burned angry instead of defeated and that’s when they begin to learn that their powers aren’t limited to just the one. Michael also learns that some of the aliens they free that they’d thought were harmless had turned out to be anything but. 

Still, it’s all worth it for their last trip to the prison.

The last time they go to Caulfield, the last alien they free before the facility goes up in flames is his mother. Michael will never forget the six months he’d gotten with her before the strain of being out had become too much for her. How she never spoke, but always used her powers so he and Alex understood everything.

He knows more about his home than he ever did in the original timeline and he knows that his mother loves him, that she approves of Alex, and that she’s so relieved that he’s _okay_.

_I know what you did,_ she tells him, on one of the last days. _I can read it on your skin. This isn’t the only life you’ve led. You’ve had another._

He’s lying with his head in her lap while she plays with his hair as if he’s seven and not twenty-two. He has no idea what she’s talking about, at that point, but his confusion doesn’t seem to anger her or put her off. 

_I’m glad you got this one. I’m glad I got to show you how much I love you, my sweet boy._

Six months is hardly the lifetime he’d wanted, but it’s better than nothing and Michael sleeps better knowing that he’d done his best to free as many aliens as they could. When Alex gets home from work, he presses a kiss to Mara’s forehead and squeezes Michael’s forearm, telling them that he’s brought home ingredients for dinner and he’ll cook for them. 

_He’s a good boy_ , his mother broadcasts publicly to the both of them. _I’m glad you didn’t let him get away._

“I could never,” Alex says, his eyes fixed on Michael as if she’d meant him and not Alex. 

Who knows? Maybe she had.

“All that work for a shitty prize,” Michael quips, and completely deserves the smack his mother gives him, not to mention Alex’s eyeroll. 

That night, they eat dinner as a family. It’s everything that Michael could have ever wanted, even if it doesn’t look the way he pictured it would. That’s something he’s still getting used to – sometimes, life has to take a lot of desperate turns for it to get to the right destination and even though he hasn’t got a wife and the white picket fence, it’s better than that.

It’s the life he’s carved out for himself and it’s messy, but it’s his (and it’s perfect).

* * *

Sometimes, he thinks the strangest memories he’s learning about are his own. 

The timelines war in his head more often than he wants them to, which leads to a lot of nights where he sits with Alex in front of the fireplace, their dog at their feet, the both of them rifling through their history like an index at a library. Lyra, their dog, whimpers when Alex stops petting her, because clearly that matters more than him and Michael reminiscing, but he gets one hand on her, the other on Michael’s leg, and they start on one of their frequent sessions to make sure they remember the _good_ life that Michael’s earned them and that it’s the one at the forefront of their minds and not the other.

“In 2008,” Alex starts, because it’s his turn for it, “we never had sex in the toolshed the day you kissed me at the Emporium.”

Michael smiles as he closes his eyes to reconcile the memory, one that had happened in both timelines, good and bad. Because of the swerve, it meant they got to talk more than they ever did the first time around. 

“I have still never been so glad for Germany needing your father’s services,” Michael quips, because they’d waited until Jesse had left town for a mission a month later before taking that next step. Without the fear of Jesse Manes, Michael had kept sleeping in the shed because as far as he’d known, it was safe. 

Then, when Jesse had been securely out of the way, he and Alex had finally connected, somehow even better than it had been in the original timeline.

Alex laughs as he rubs his hands up and down Michael’s denim-clad legs. “I don’t think I ever felt as giddy as I did when I woke up to you that next morning,” he admits. “I felt like we had our whole future ahead of us.”

Michael loves remembering that, along with the memory of spending all the subsequent nights together with their bodies tangled together. They’d spent so much time in that shed, with Michael tracing patterns over Alex’s skin as he spoke about his dreams for the future, all while Jesse was half a world away and no longer posed a real threat. 

“That summer,” Alex keeps going, because it looks like today is about cementing those early days, like Alex needs to do anything but think about enlisting in the air force the way he had before Michael had fixed things. “That July night, you took me out to the desert with a blanket, and a six-pack,” he recalls with a rueful laugh. “We were stargazing and making out and then, out of nowhere…”

“I asked you to come with me to UNM,” Michael cuts him off, because it’s one of his fondest memories. He’d been in such a panic, had been thinking about it since they first made love, and it’d taken all his courage to get the question out. “I mean, I’m pretty sure I just said ‘come with me’, and it took another few minutes before my brain caught up and made it about something other than sex.” 

Alex laughs at that, leaning forward, because, “Also, we had just finished fucking, so if you were asking to go again, I would have probably figured out you were some kind of sex alien a lot sooner,” he teases, easing back after he kisses Michael’s lips, like he’s swaying back from the contact. “I’m sorry it took me two days to figure out my answer. I didn’t want to be that cliché high school sweetheart who put his life aside for the guy he loves.”

Michael gets that, now. Of course, now with 20-20 hindsight, he also knows what happens when Alex hadn’t followed him, and this is a much better outcome.

Those two days had been the most stressful of Michael’s life, where he’d feared the worst, but he will _always_ remember two nights later when, after taking his time thinking and deliberating, Alex had shown up with a packed bag and two bus tickets to Albuquerque. “We have to check out the campus, right? And I can make music anywhere,” was what he’d said.

“When you said yes, after I made sure you knew how happy I was about that, I remember looking up at the stars and it was the first time I didn’t think about someone coming to rescue me. I remember thinking about how I was going to make a home on earth with you, instead.”

Alex tips his head to the side and he’s starting to get teary-eyed, which is never a good sign, because that tends to get Michael going. Besides, it’s his turn to focus on a memory and he’s not ready to stop just yet. He closes his eyes and reaches out to rest both hands atop Alex’s knees like he’s putting the point of the evening back in frame.

“I keep thinking about UNM,” he admits. “Especially that shitty first year,” he says, and it’s always strange to think about the bad memories in a life where he feels like since nothing had been as bad as Rosa’s death, it can’t compare. Try telling that to your emotions, though. “Leaving Max and Isobel willingly, I don’t think anything’s ever been as hard.”

“Yeah, well,” Alex presses his lips together, old strains surfacing. “You really worried me for a while. Those first few months, I had a bag packed in the closet because I thought you’d fail out of your courses because of how much time you spent on the phone with them or visiting them. You bailing on our dinner dates for them…”

“I know,” Michael says, hushed, and still feeling guilty for it. “It was easier to listen to Isobel’s screwed up love life or hear stories about Max and Liz than think about how isolated I felt without them.” The pain flashes over his face because he hates saying this out loud, but he and Alex decided to be honest with each other years ago and that doesn’t stop because something’s hard to say. “I didn’t want to believe that you weren’t enough and that I needed a support system outside of you, but that first year…” 

Well, it had proven that they couldn’t survive wrapped up in each other’s’ orbit alone.

“It worked out,” Alex reminds him. “You found a balance and you made friends in your classes, which meant that I had time to enroll in the programming courses, and that I still had time for my music.” 

He’d always said in those days that music and coding were like two sides of the same coin. It was creating, whether it be with notes or code, and creating something out of nothing. Michael will always be happy that Alex had never given up on his love of music, though, or he would never have countless voicemail files from Alex singing him to sleep when they weren’t together or awake as an alarm. 

“Speaking of, we should definitely do another open mic night soon,” Michael insists, because he’s pretty sure that Alex singing while he plays backup guitar for Alex’s songs is the best foreplay they’ve ever figured out. 

“Always,” Alex agrees, voice low with promise, clearly feeling very similar to Michael on that topic. 

The warmth of the fire beside them has Michael feeling sleepy, but his head is still a chaotic mess and he still needs a few more pieces in place. Better to look crazy in front of your husband who also has his own timeline issues than have a breakdown in front of all his students. 

“I keep thinking about our other _big_ fight,” he admits, since they’re already talking about touchy subjects tonight and he needs to get them out, see for himself that Alex isn’t going to walk away because things get too rough. He doesn’t do that in this timeline, he rarely has, but Michael still has that lingering fear under his skin.

It really is harder to shake the past than he wants it to be. 

“Which one?” Alex asks quietly. 

“The acetone one,” Michael breathes out. 

It had taken Michael three years to finish his undergrad and another two for his masters, and he had accomplished those late nights and the long days with the help of acetone to numb him when he’d needed it, but also when he hadn’t. 

“You stopped using it as much,” Alex says, but his brow is furrowed and it’s clear that he doesn’t like to think about it either. “Emergencies only, that’s what we said, and you’ve stuck to that. The fact that I left for a week…”

Michael closes his eyes tightly and reminds himself that Alex had come back. The insidious voice whispering in his head, reminding him of Alex walking away at the drive-in has no place in his head. Alex had come back. 

“We figured it out,” Alex says, full of that fierce air force determination from before and the take-no-prisoners corporate attitude from now. “Even without it at the end, you managed to graduate with your masters and your undergrad in four years, that’s incredible, Michael.”

Every time Alex talks about how proud he is of him, Michael blushes like he’s still seventeen. Honestly, at this rate, he hopes it never stops.

“That was a big year,” Michael says, shaking his head. “Graduation, the year we got Lyra, and…”

Fuck, it really is a night for bad topics. 

“And Caulfield,” Alex agrees, his face darkening for the reminder.

Job prospects had fallen to the wayside to focus on a year of alien rescue, alien hunting, and of all things, ended the year with Alex seeking out one specific alien’s approval.

“I know it was really rough for a while,” Alex says as he drags Lyra in between them, as if they both need that extra dose of puppy love for the hard subjects they’re dragging to the surface to rehash, “but I know that I’ve never felt better than the moment your Mom gave me her blessing to be with you.” 

“She adored you from the start, she was just making you sweat it out,” Michael guarantees, because he has a head full of memories of his mother’s disbelief that she could trust a human as easily as she’d trusted Alex.

That’s Alex Manes for you. He’s always managing to make you feel things you never meant to. 

They’d had the wedding only a month later, both of them panicking that if they put it off for too long, she wouldn’t be there to see it. Max had pushed her in a wheelchair alongside Michael so that she could give him away before Michael stood under a gazebo and pledged his life to Alex Manes. 

Max and Liz had beaten them to it, by only a year and a half, which comes up a lot when Isobel teases them about being boring old marrieds. “Max, I understood,” she’s always said. “I lost a lot of money on you, though,” has always been her chief complaint about Michael. “I really thought you’d hold off at least until you were having a mid-twenties crisis to propose.”

No one had counted on them finding his mother. 

(Besides, he would’ve married Alex at nineteen if he’d had his future better figured out, but he doesn’t feel like telling that soppy romantic crap to anyone)

“If we’re talking about the hard things,” Michael says, tangling his fingers with Alex in Lyra’s fur, “Can we talk about you working with the government? I’m not talking past tense anymore,” he clarifies.

“I’ve told you before,” Alex begins, and Michael knows exactly where this is going.

“I know, I get it, keep your enemies close, but it feels dangerous, Alex,” Michael says, his voice strung with tension like a guitar string waiting to snap. “Your dad is still out there and he has files on me, on Max, and Isobel, and I know you wiped them from the drives, but he could still come after us and you’re in a dangerous position.”

“Michael,” Alex says, leaning forward to cup his face in both hands, pressing his forehead to Michael’s in the exact way he knows will calm the chaos in his head. “Have I ever not protected you?” 

“No.”

“Then trust me,” he pleads. “You’ve got the junkyard to keep your mind off this stuff, I can have a government conspiracy to fill my time, right?” He’s trying to lighten the mood and joke, but it’s one of Michael’s deepest fears. 

This is all getting to be too much of the bad and Michael needs more of the good to think about. 

He rubs his forehead against Alex’s, wanting to resolve this and yet knowing that it won’t happen so easily. “We’ll talk about it again another night,” he insists stubbornly, not willing to let it go, but they do this a few times a week, so he’ll get another chance. 

Alex takes a deep breath and pushes it out past his lips. He clearly doesn’t like it, but he’s willing to accept it. “Fine,” he allows. “Then, one more,” he says. “One more and I think the trip down memory lane is done for tonight, because I don’t know about you, but I’m exhausted.”

That’s fine by him, but he’s got a good one to finish off with and it’s finally not one of their big arguments or a dark day in their past. “Remember when I presented my thesis? I came home that night and you had a bottle of champagne, a bouquet of roses, and you called me Dr. Guerin with all this pride and love and this sexy little catch in your breath…” 

He has to take a moment to steady his breathing just thinking about it, honestly. 

“I was so proud of you,” Alex says. “I _am_ so proud of you,” he clarifies. “Dr. Guerin.”

“Dr. Manes-Guerin,” he says smugly. “I’ve never been happier saying that name than I am when I get to rub it in your brothers and father’s faces,” he says with the look of a man who’s done that so many times on purpose. “Tainting the Manes name, one day at a time.”

He deserves the mild shove Alex gives him, before he gets out with a groan, stretching out his legs. “All right, I think it’s time for bed,” he announces, bending to hook Lyra’s leash to her collar to take her out for the night. “Lock up?”

“Yeah, I will,” Michael assures.

He takes his time dousing the fire and turning off all the lights in their Albuquerque townhome. Soon, they’ll be headed back to the house in Roswell, where they spend summers and school breaks. This is the house that’s seen him write his thesis, his subsequent papers, and it’s where he does his work on interstellar travel when he consults with NASA. 

It’s Liz’s favorite thing in the world to tease him about. “You think they’re ever going to figure out that the proof of alien life they’re looking for is the guy who keeps eating all their chocolate cake in the cafeteria?” she constantly teases him.

For his safety’s sake, he has to hope they never do, but it’s definitely an amusing thought.

Michael’s looking forward to being back in Roswell soon, because he’s eager to get back to the finishing touches on the spaceship, not to mention some of his other alien-tech projects. Since Alex had founded his own tech security company, he’s had the freedom to work anywhere and spends most of his days working with Lyra under his feet, no matter what city they’re in.

It’s _good_. It’s normal, which boggles Michael’s mind most days, and it’s not always easy (the alien marrying a human thing is hard, which Max attests to with Liz and some days, that love gets strained when they’re running failed test number thirty of trying to expand their powers to new heights).

Still, compared to the timeline they’ve come from, he can take a little marital discord. 

Once the house is locked up for the night, he curls into the warmth of Alex’s arms and lets himself drift off to sleep with thoughts of his ten-year anniversary gift to Alex in his mind. He’s got a pair of plane tickets hiding in a drawer for an around the world trip, a summer away from Roswell and UNM and their lives. 

He’s just waiting for the right opportunity to surprise Alex with them.

That opportunity comes at the end of the spring semester when they’re at an awards ceremony for some nonsense category Michael got nominated for, but it’s given them the chance to dress up. “This is a big deal,” Alex insists, as Michael lifts his head and lets Alex fix his tie for the fifth time that evening, because Michael keeps messing it up. “You were nominated by your students and your peers, that means something.”

“I’m not gonna win it,” Michael dismisses. “It’s literally called the Distinguished Teaching Award and we both know that word is the furthest thing from me in human existence.”

Alex gives him a stubborn look, yanking on his tie to choke him a little, messing it up just to fuck with him. He goes right back to redoing it for the sixth time, his brows furrowed and a look on his face that Michael knows well.

That, he knows, is his ‘my husband is pretty stupid for a genius’ face.

“Did you make it this tight to strangle me on purpose?” Michael complains as he fidgets with the collar, sliding into the navy-blue jacket Alex holds out for him. That earns him a look of utter disbelief as he pulls on his black sports coat, pushing Michael out the door by the shoulders. “I keep telling you! This is a waste of time.”

It is, he’s convinced. There’s a ton of better professors on the staff, Michael spends most of his time in office hours and writing papers, and he always feels like a fraud. 

“There’s no way I’m gonna win this thing.”

It makes it all the more annoying when the Dean of the science department stands on stage applauding for, “our Distinguished Teacher of the Year, Dr. Guerin!”

Alex is clapping the loudest, whistling for him, and looking so smug that Michael would try and wipe that look off his face if it wouldn’t make him so happy to have it kissed away. 

Given that he hadn’t prepared a speech (he genuinely thought he didn’t have a shot in hell at this), his acceptance is an embarrassing thing that has so many phones out that this’ll definitely turn up on the internet by tomorrow, but he makes it through. It’s an awkward and stilted speech where he remembers to thank his students, his family, his friends, and his husband before heading back to the table with a, “I mean, you totally picked wrong, but whatever, sure,” as he hefts up the award.

“You want to tell me more about how you weren’t going to win?” Alex whispers to him, as they stop applauding him (finally) and move on to the next category.

Michael glowers at him. “You know you don’t look good when you’re smug.”

“No,” Alex replies serenely, eyes on the stage. “I do.”

And fuck, but he’s right. Michael’s pretty sure Alex looks good in every situation. 

The rest of the night is torture, mainly because Alex decides to show his pride and pleasure by rubbing his hand up and down Michael’s thigh, squeezing his knee every time one of his colleagues wins an award. Michael knows he’s just being supportive, but fuck, at this rate, Michael won’t even get to give away his anniversary gift before he finds them a bush they can fuck in.

It wouldn’t be the first time, but he just won an award for being a distinguished teacher and he thinks it’d be a bad idea to get arrested for public indecency on the same night.

When the last award is handed out and the music is playing everyone out, Michael stops Alex from following their friends, who are heading out to grab a drink at the campus bar. 

“Hey,” Michael says, tugging on Alex’s hand to keep him in place once they’re outside. “Come take a walk with me? I kind of want some alone time after my big victory.”

“You want me to hold your award?” Alex teases. “Distinguished Doctor Guerin.”

Michael still has no idea how the hell he’s managed to win this thing. His teaching style isn’t exactly the kind that coddles his students, but he likes to think he’s honest and he challenges them without being cruel, so maybe that’s paid off. He settles it in the curve of his arm like he’s holding Leo for the first time again, patting his precious trophy. 

“You’re never gonna let me live this down,” Michael realizes. “Are you?”

Alex stares at him in disbelief. “I still remember coming back to Roswell the first time, seeing you still there in your trailer, thinking you were making meth. I was so happy to see you there, but it broke my heart, because I knew how much you could’ve done with that giant brain of yours.” He’s bursting with happiness, staring at Michael as all that joy exudes from his face. “Now, I get to live a life knowing how much you can accomplish when my father didn’t take _everything_ away from us.”

He slides his hands up and down Michael’s sides, stepping in closer to him. They sway back and forth, a little like they’re dancing even though there isn’t a noise around them apart from the crickets.

“Success looks good on you,” Alex praises.

“Happiness looks better,” Michael argues, because that’s what it is. “UNM may have given me a full ride, but you supported me through the rest of it, the masters and the doctorate. That’s not them. That’s you, that’s Liz and Max, that’s Isobel keeping me sane,” he admits with a fond laugh. “I used to think, back in that old life, that I never wanted to come here or do this because then I’d be normal, that they couldn’t teach me what I was actually wanting to know. And you know what? I am normal.”

There’s no denying that he is. 

It turns out that apparently he kind of _likes_ normal.

Michael reaches out to tug Alex closer to him, both hands cupping his face so he can kiss him like he had the night of the reunion (and even though they have two reunions in their memories, the way they’d kissed at it hadn’t changed between timelines); full of desperation, tenderness, and pouring his heart out to the man who’s held it safe since he was seventeen years old. 

“Run away with me,” Michael whispers, his lips pressed to Alex’s neck. “This summer, let’s go see the world. Maybe even the universe?” Because the ship is all but ready to go, he just needs to press ignition and he has the feeling that offering a glimpse of the universe is better than any old road trip.

Alex laughs, clearly thinking it’s a joke. “Wait. What?”

“I bought two plane tickets, around the world,” he whispers. “So long as we keep going in one direction, we can fly anywhere we want.” He bites his lip, eager to share the next part. “Then, when we get back here, we can head up into the stars, I can show you the world…” he teases, and completely deserves the light push, but at least Michael hadn’t been singing.

Alex looks stunned, genuinely overwhelmed by the offer. 

“You’re serious,” he says, gaping at him. 

“C’mon, baby, let me show you how out of this world you can be,” he whispers. 

Against all common sense and logic, Alex says yes to that (when usually it would just get him smacked). He pins Michael to the nearest wall with a kiss that practically knocks the breath out of him, a kiss that Michael is never going to forget. He’s dazed by the time Alex pulls away, looking a little shocked at the enthusiasm behind that reaction, but hey, he’s going with it. “Okay,” is all Michael says, yanking his tie off so he can go in for round two. 

They don’t make it to the bar that night to celebrate with their friends because they end up fumbling their way back to their townhome, somehow managing to stay mostly dressed the whole time. They’re avoiding their friends, but Michael’s okay with that. 

After all, the celebration they do have is _epic_ and he knows for a fact his peers can’t do what Alex can with his mouth and his body and it’s his night, so that means he gets whatever he wants.

Now, then, and always, what he wants is Alex Manes-Guerin, and he doesn’t see that changing.

* * *

Then, there’s Rosa.

Michael catches Liz looking at her sometimes like she can’t quite believe that she’s still there and real. Her living has triggered so many chain reactions, but sometimes Michael thinks that going back in time had never been about him and Alex, but had always been for Liz. He managed to give someone their sister back. He can only imagine how he would’ve felt if someone had taken Isobel from him, then managed to find a way to get her back.

Rosa being alive isn’t perfect or without complications, but even Liz will admit that Rosa’s life could never be _simple_..

Finding out that Kyle and Rosa and Liz all shared a relation had been one hell of a month for everyone involved. Rosa’s steamy affair with Maria had been the talk of the town for months before Rosa had decided that she wanted something else. 

That _something else_ is Isobel Evans and everyone in town seems to know except for her is one of life’s greatest mysteries. Michael and the rest of their group have kept trying to get sense into Isobel’s head, but she’s still blind to Rosa. Or, maybe, she’s _scared_ because of what happened in the past and the fact that it’s something real. 

Kyle and Maria are hot distractions, but they’re not real. 

There’s still Project Shephard to worry about, which seems to have deeper roots than anyone anticipated and there are some deaths they couldn’t prevent – Jim Valenti, for instance – but they’re stronger than they were before and happier.

The one thing Michael isn’t sure he can get over is that no matter how hard life can be, they’re all _happier_. 

“You did such a good thing,” Alex murmurs into his neck one night, when they’re tangled up together. They both have a habit of being overly touchy with Alex’s right leg, like they can’t believe that it’s still there. It’s the same with Michael’s hand, no longer battered and bruised, because Michael had managed to avoid that, even if he’d also delayed that first cosmic connection.

They’re whole in all kinds of visible ways, stronger together.

“I was just trying to fix _us_ ,” he confesses, because he’d been selfish. He doesn’t have to tell Alex, though, who’d lived through every one of those loops and knows exactly what Michael had done. “It took me thirty-three attempts before it even occurred to me that maybe something else in the universe existed outside of you and I on that day.” Talk about being a dumb kid. Still, there’s something amusing in the fact that it took him _not_ having sex with Alex to end up getting a lifetime of it. 

“Pretty happy that you figured that out,” Alex whispers back.

He knows there are still big complications, like the fear that Jesse is going to storm their lives one day and walk out with Michael, Max, and Isobel in cages. He knows that Alex feels awful that he’ll never get the approval that he wants from his brothers or father the way Michael had managed with his mother. 

He also knows that Alex has a new family, now. 

It’s why he spoils Leo so much and babysits him twice a week when they’re in town. It’s why he’s the one who arranges for them to go out with Isobel or on double dates with Max and Liz. He’s carving himself a new family out of the ruins of the one that was never there for him and Michael’s been a key part of that.

It's never going to be _perfect_ and they’re always going to have to live with that complicated version of events in their heads, but Michael feels pretty selfishly pleased to know that at least it also means the one they’re living from here on out is a happier one.

“Hey,” Michael murmurs with a smile, his fingers on Alex’s back, staring at his husband. “I love you.”

“You always have, always will,” Alex echoes what Michael usually says next, cutting him off before he can say it. “I love you too,” he says. “I did that day when you crawled into bed with me and held me tight during that loop. I just couldn’t say it yet.”

“You did, though.”

“Pretty sure I didn’t,” Alex sleepily counters, but Michael can feel his grin against his skin.

Michael tightens his hold on him. “You did,” he promises. “Because the minute you said my first name the way you did, I knew that you loved me, that you always have, and I hoped that you always would.”

“Then I’m glad you knew, because I was too scared to admit it,” is the last thing Alex says before he falls asleep. Michael is chasing after him, no longer fearful of waking up and having to relive that same wonderful and awful day the way he had been for months after he’d returned to the future, always paranoid that one day, he’d go back.

One bad timeline, thirty-three loops, and one good one and here they are at the precipice of the rest of their lives. Finally, he’s beginning to accept that this is _real_ , that this is it. 

That maybe, just maybe, he deserves a little happiness.

* * *

Michael wakes up.

He leans over, kisses Alex’s temple, pulls him in a little closer and decides that the day doesn’t have to start just yet. He wakes up and then he goes back to sleep, safe in Alex’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on [tumblr](https://andrea-lyn.tumblr.com/) of course, if you care to come shout at me or just like staring at these beautiful faces as much as I do and wanting to play with their stories like dolls.


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